St. Petersberg - Church on Spilled Blood. I don't even know how to begin to describe this cathederal, but it is one of the most beautiful works of art -- period. Here's the back story -- Tsar Alexander II was mortally wounded along a canal in SP. There had been threats on his life and one night, while walking along the canal, a man had tried to kill him. Frustrated, he confronted the man but didn't know about the other man, who ended up mortally wounding him. According to our guide yesterday (who must have had a PhD in SP, whe was so informative), Alexander II abolished slavery in Russia along with other great works but the guide book tells that his reforms didn't make life easy for the working people, which was behind his assasination. Anyway, his son Alexander III built the Church over the spot where his father was wounded. The canal now narrows at this point where the wall was built out to support the Church. Inside the church there are beautifully carved stone pillars and an ornate canopy over the actually cobbles and railing from the orignal street. Fresh flowers are put on the site every day. Our guide told us a "secret" that the top of the canopy is actually being restored, so they took it off and put a paper mache replacement on top until they can restore the original. Here's the amazingly amazing this about the Church on Spilled Blood -- all of the work on the inside is done in glass tile mosaic. ALL OF IT -- huge "paintings", decorative edges, everything. And the place is HUGE!! The art work on the outside is also done in glass moasaic as well. The gold glass has about three layers of gold leaf, each covered with a layer of liquid glass, and then the tiles were not mounted flat, but with slight angles. When the sun shines on the tiles they just glow. I'll add pictures when possible but, like any amazing work of art and architecture, it's just so hard to convey the grand scale of the whole thing.